


Walking on a Wire (Trying to go Higher)

by Anonymouspotato



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, My sorry attempt at replicating Mercer Dreams, Other, Past Abuse, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:35:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23306167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymouspotato/pseuds/Anonymouspotato
Summary: He coughed, swirling in the endless nothing. Far in the distance, there was a warm point of light. He could faintly hear the familiar, crackling whispers of open flame.Or; Caleb and Desirat...have a talk.
Relationships: Caleb Widogast & Desirat | The Twilight Phoenix
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39





	Walking on a Wire (Trying to go Higher)

**Author's Note:**

> As is often the case recently, blame the Widojest discord.

Caleb cracked open his eyes. He was floating in some kind of thick black soup, weightlessly suspended. He breathed hesitantly through his teeth, expecting saline fluid, but instead finding the tangy, acrid scent of smoke. He coughed, swirling in the endless nothing. Far in the distance, there was a warm point of light. He could faintly hear the familiar, crackling whispers of open flames.

“Hello?”

The whispers grew louder. In the back of his mind, they coalesced into something approximating words.  **_“Come, Feuerstarter. We have much to discuss.”_ **

‘Firestarter.’ Caleb gulped.

There was a rumbling, tectonic sound beneath him, and he fell - perhaps down, perhaps up. He landed hard on his back, the wind leaping out of his lungs as his body met hard stone. After a few moments gasping for air in the smoky void, he got his bearings well enough to push to his feet. A long, winding path of glassy black stone stretched out before him, barely discernible, leading towards the warm mote. Caleb started staggering forward, shedding his coat as the heat swelled. He stepped into the light, one foot, then the other, and emerged into a bubbling caldera.

The smoke, which had gotten so thick he could barely see through it, abruptly cleared. Around the outside of the chamber was a small ledge, barely five feet wide, that he stood on. Just below it was a bubbling pit of lava. And above, suspended by nine thick chains, was a dark purple entity in the vague shape of a gigantic bird, with glowing, featureless yellow eyes.

“Who…” He whispered. “Who are you?”

The bird’s head cocked.  **_“I have been waiting for you, Feuerstarter. One who shares my pain.”_ **

“You didn’t answer my question.” The walls shook - the ledge was only four feet now.

**_“The scars you bear...I have them as well. I have met great suffering at the hands of their predecessors.”_ **

“You have a bone to pick with the Cerberus Assembly.”

**_“More than that, Child of Zemnia. I wish to burn the eyes from their skulls, the flesh from those bones. I believe you want the same.”_ **

The instinct to run, hide, make himself small was starting to kick in. But as he reached a hand back to the wall of the cavern, he found solid stone. Three feet.

“Why should I help you?”

The bird made a crisp, raspy noise he supposed was laughter.  **_“I wish to help you, Feuerstarter. To destroy the ones who made our lives hell, scorch their towers and legacies until nothing remains but a blackened reminder.”_ **

The vision seemed to curl into his mind as a wisp of purple smoke slipped into his ear. The Candles in ruins, Castle Ungebroch alight in the background, Ikithon begging on his knees, a burn etched into his sharp face like a fierce memory. It was tantalizing, alluring in a way he could not put into words. 

“You...can do that?”

**_“You can, Feuerstarter. And I shall help you, with one condition.”_ **

Caleb felt his wits return, suspicion bristling like porcupine spines. “What condition?”

The phoenix’s eyes shrank away, consumed by the smoke, before flaring up pitch black. Three charcoal feathers began to circle him at shoulder level.

**_“I was bound to my current form by three locks, long ago. I require three keys.”_ **

“You wish me to release you?” Two feet.

**_“Merely one lock would suffice. I have others, broken souls who found the fire within to keep going. The keys are scattered, but reachable.”_ **

Memories of a pirate ship and shape shifting scions of the deep nipped at the back of Caleb’s mind. “I will consider it heavily.”

He almost held his breath, but the creature seemed to accept the lie. **_“Very well, Feurerstarter.”_ ** One foot. A streak of light broke through the smoke, curling into the shape of a fierce, cruel smile.  **_“I shall see you again soon.”_ **

Six inches, no inches, he was falling, falling, falling, and then he was awake.

Her shot up, clutching at his throat and mouth as he coughed onto the grass. Fjord and Beau, who were on watch, turned sharply, climbing gently over the press of bodies. “Woah, woah. You okay there, man?”

He sat back, pushing his sweaty hair out of his face. “Fjord?”

Fjord leaned forward “Yes?”

Caleb reached over to the spot on the ground where he had retched and picked up a handful of ash. “We may have a problem.”

**Author's Note:**

> I actually had Caleb roll a deception check (DC 20) at the end there. I don’t know if he’s Proficient in Deception or not, but he passed it either way (albeit just barely if not-he rolled a 17).


End file.
